A Similar Song
by Sapphira2
Summary: “He had never lost what the rest of the world had. He had come into her life with every piece of his soul intact. Which was more than anyone else in it could say.” Jane’s thoughts during the wolf scene in “For Love of Country”Part 11 in Reflecti


"A Similar Song" 

**Part Eleven in the "Reflections" Series,**

**written by Sapphira**

**Short Story Based on the WB TV Series "Tarzan"**

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**Disclaimer: **Don't own any of it… not the characters, the music, or the tv series in any form… I am making no profit off of this, or ANY of my other fanfics… I'm writing it purely for my own enjoyment, and hopefully for the enjoyment of some of the fellow fans.

**Distribution: **If you want it, you can have it… just drop me a line and tell me where it is going… ;)****

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**Author's Note – **This is the eleventh part in an on-going series of mine, and is the sequel to "I'm With You", "Lies", "Fallen", "Forever", "Hollow", "Nothing Thicker Than Blood", "Dangerous Parallels", "Breathe In", "So Are You To Me", and "Choices"… Although all of these stories CAN be read as stand-alone pieces, I do hope that you will take the time and read all of them in order, if you have not done so already… Enjoy!

P.S. Sorry it took me so long to get this out. I needed a little break after having gone non-stop for the last two months… And yeah, I know I said at the end of "Choices" that the next part would be "It's You", but every time I get ready to write that story, it seems to somehow or other get pushed further ahead, in order to make way for another story previously unplanned. First with "Choices" (that puppy came right out of the blue after seeing that episode about ten times) and now with this one… Truth of the matter is, the scene between John and that wolf (which follows directly on the heels of the scene in which "Choices" was based around) was so overwhelmingly powerful for me (I have a very big love for wolves) and although I could have just done a recap of that scene in another story, I realized that that just wouldn't ever work… this particular scene couldn't just be included in another story… It WAS its own story… So here it is. I may have gotten a little carried away with this one, but I couldn't help but think that the writers were trying to draw parallels between John and that lone wolf… So I decided to take that and run with it. I hope it works!

And okay, I'm pretty sure that the next part is going to be "It's You"… but don't quote me on that… (grin)

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**Summary – "**He had never lost what the rest of the world had. He had come into her life with every piece of his soul intact. Which was more than anyone else in it could say." Jane's thoughts as she sees John with the wolf in "For Love of Country"… Part Eleven in Reflections Series…

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"A Similar Song" 

The sun had just begun to rise. Dawn had just begun to crack. The light from the birth of a new day filtered in through the dirty glass panes that made up the windows in the rustic cabin, and slowly began to awaken Jane to its presence.

Stirring slightly from where she was curled up on the old couch strategically placed in front of the fireplace, Jane yawned and blinked the sleep from her eyes. Pushing herself up into a sitting position on the cushions, she looked around. Wondering what time it was, and whether or not John was alright. Interesting how it never took long for her thoughts to go back to him. They always did in one way or another.

Letting out a sigh, she swung her legs around. Wincing as the stiffened muscles in her bruised abdomen retaliated. It was hard to believe that barely twenty-four hours had passed since her encounter with Gene at the airstrip. So much had happened since then, it had actually been pretty easy for her to forget about the unpleasantness of it. That is, until her body saw fit like it was doing right now, to remind her of it.

But either way, she wasn't going to allow herself to dwell on it. She was a cop. Her body had been trained to take on that kind of physical damage. And she had had worse. It hadn't been the first time she had been beaten up, and she was pretty sure it wouldn't be the last. It was just one of those risks that you dealt with if you were a cop. A price that you eventually paid, especially if you were a female. It was sad, very sad… but it was the truth.

She stood, wincing yet again as muscles fought to stretch and relax all the way up and down her frame. She reached behind her had grabbed one of the musty-smelling quilts she had used to cover up with. Immediately aware of the chill that permeated the interior of the cabin. The fire had long since died out despite the extra pieces of wood she had thrown on it before drifting off to sleep, and all that remained of her heating source were a few smoldering embers buried within the grey silt-like ash. 

Turning towards the door, she padded over to it barefoot, stretching the muscles in her back and neck as she did so. She didn't think much about why she was doing this right off the bat. Why setting eyes on John was the first most relevant demand that her sub-consciousness was making. It was just too early in the morning for those kinds of personal and pretty much meaningless debates. Especially when she already knew the answer.

No matter what her concerns or issues were, she still couldn't quite kick her all-consuming desire to know where he was. To see him, to touch him… to know that he was okay. She had tried to ignore that need early on in their acquaintance and it had only made her miserable and distracted. Her finally figuring out a way to rationalize that, and simply allow it precedence was one of the very few compromises that she had allowed herself to make in regards to their… connection.

The no touching rule had been another one. Although that wasn't really fair to either one of them if she wouldn't let herself be intimate with him just yet. In some ways she regretted revoking that rule… in other ways she never wanted to be without that contact with him ever again. 

She couldn't hardly comprehend how it was that she felt every time that he touched her. Whether his caresses were innocent… or anything but. He could touch her face or her mouth or run his fingers down her the line of her throat, and leave her with the sensation that he had just done so much more than just simply touch her skin. And she'd be lying if she said that him having that power over her didn't frighten her on an elemental level just a little bit.

Reaching for the knob, she opened it and slipped through. Closing it resolutely behind her. No matter how cool it was in there, it was still holding some trace elements of the heat provided by the burnt out fire… which meant that it was still warmer by a few degrees than it was outside.

Adjusting the quilt more firmly about her shoulders, she yawned a little. Unable to resist doing so after being surrounded by the fresh, crisp yet earthy scent of the pure early morning air. The breeze kicked up and brushed across the couple of inches along her navel like a tiny set of chilled fingertips where her tank top was riding up, and she shivered. Making sure she was wrapped as securely as possible within the embrace of that old quilt. 

When she finally looked up, her gaze was ensnared by a sight that she hadn't been expecting, and she immediately became very still. Body frozen as her eyes remained locked on the vision.

It was a wolf. Moving slowly but resolutely down the slope no more than thirty feet away. She had never seen a wolf in real life before, and it took her the briefest of moments to register that she now was… and was so close to it that she could make out the details in its fur, the bone structure to its face, the color to its eyes... and the liquid grace in which its muscles coiled and bunched and released under its pelt. Moving with muscles in places that she was now beginning to doubt was anything like another member of the canine family.

Interesting how she had never really drawn a difference between wolves and the common dog. Even though she knew on an intellectual level that wolves were a completely different species, she had never really thought of them as anything other than wild dogs… 

But they weren't dogs, and nothing could bring that fact to the surface more clearly, then if you suddenly found yourself in the presence of one. 

The knowledge didn't come from your mind or your intellect… it came from someplace else entirely. It made your heart suddenly swell and your eyes burn with overwhelming emotion. It touched your soul and forced you to acknowledge the mystique and simple exoticness standing right in front of you. A strange sense of nobility and strength that you never would have expected coming from just an animal. 

Some people feared wolves on many different levels for many different reasons, with many different results. Some of them incredibly and viciously cruel. But fear wasn't what one should feel when looking at them. Gratitude was. Gratitude for just those few moments in time that you had been chosen to witness something that most never would, and wouldn't even think to miss…

Awe, because you knew that no matter how others might view your description of the experience, or may not even understand it, you had experienced one of those key moments that made up the string of your most valuable moments… 

And regret, because you realized in that one moment, how far the human race had fallen to be able to ignore such beauty and natural purity… And how much we had changed and what we had lost along the way that we would never again quite be able to regain. Not completely.

Maybe that was why some people hated wolves – and other living creatures, including fellow humans – with such a burning, unreasonable, and destructive hatred… They saw a perfect reflections of what they had become when they looked into just a pair of simple eyes whose only fault was that they saw no untruth. They saw you for what you were, and provided you with the mirror in which to see it for yourself. 

That was where the sense of threat came from. That was where the fear was borne.

And the only way to keep from being forced to face the real threat to your soul was to wrap up all of your fears and insecurities and doubts and place it in a different box by another name… and destroy it. You'd given your fear a name, and even though it wasn't the real one, you don't dare try and change it. Because then the fear might actually have to be unleashed, and then that would force you to confront something that you could never be prepared for. Yourself.

Was that what Richard Clayton had seen in his nephew? Jane honestly didn't know anymore… but she did know that if that was the case, then just like some people would with that wolf, he would try to destroy John if he could. Destroy what he feared. Never realizing that it wouldn't work. It wouldn't make it all better. It would only make it worse, because what he feared was something that he could never destroy as easily as he could another living, breathing creature… He still wouldn't be able to truly look at himself in the mirror. He would never be able to fix what he had chosen to become. 

She watched unblinkingly as the wolf continued to steadily move down the slope. What was it doing here? Wolves were pack animals, so where was the rest of the pack? 

"They're singing…" 

She had a sudden flashback to last night, and the chorusing that she had listened to taking place so close by. A wolf's howl was beautiful yet slightly disturbing at the same time if you had never heard it before. I mean, **_really_** heard it. Recordings simply just didn't do it justice. It sent shivers down your spine and made your skin tingle in a not totally unpleasant way, but that wasn't the half of it. It was the way it echoed… bouncing off of trees and mountains until it sounded like they're were dozens or even hundreds when in actuality there was only a few. They could sound closer or farther… or both at the same time. It made it difficult to pinpoint their exact location. Making it easy to view them once more as the almost mystical creatures that they had been considered as for thousands of years by so many different cultures. Cultures that had both revered... and reviled their existence on yet again so many different levels.

But even though their exact numbers and location had escaped her, she had known all too well that the Pack had moved through the territory surrounding the cabin… So why was this wolf still here?

Jane watched as the wolf came to a stop in the opening… lowering his muzzle to the ground to eat at something resting there amidst the dead grass and brown, crushed bits of leaf.

And then her breath suddenly caught with the scene suddenly taken place in front of her as John materialized only a few feet away from the wolf. Sliding out from the tree-line and brush with the same inhuman grace that the wolf had displayed in its descent down the slope to the place where it was now, only a few feet away from John. 

Her eyes went wide with the impact of what she was witnessing. Feeling a sense of disbelief, awe, and something else that she couldn't quite put a name to… Something that she couldn't help but feel was leading her to some big revelation that she wasn't quite sure just yet her fractured world was ready to take on.

But life doesn't ask you what you want. It just grabs you by the teeth and takes you off in a certain direction whether you want to go or not. And all that stuff about free will? It was a nice theory, but lately she had come to believe that there was no truth to it.

John slinked forward, his body pressed low to the ground as he moved closer. His motions again mimicking that of another animal. Not human. 

He came to a stop a respectful distance away as the wolf continued to eat. Watching John carefully, but showing no signs of being afraid.

Then it clicked with Jane what he had done. John had left it food. He had provided for it in much the same way that he had provided for her the previous night, because like her, the wolf hadn't been equipped to provide for itself on its own. There were reasons why wolves formed such large family structures. Hunting for food was a team effort. 

Now realizing what was happening, her eyes once again trailed over the form of the wolf. She didn't know much about them, but weren't they supposed to be a little bigger? And what about weight? He looked a little on the thin side, but with that thick pelt, it was hard to tell.

Was that it then? Was this a rogue? A loner? Had he been kicked out of the pack? Was he even full grown? He wasn't afraid, and the logical assumption was that maybe he was still young enough not to be as cautious as the older wolves.

Jane took another step forward. Wanting to have a better view. She watched as John reached his hand out tentatively. Offering it to the wolf. It wasn't so much as a submissive gesture, as one that communicated his gentle intentions. There was no fear present in either one of them. It would be the wolf's decision.

John's hand made contact with the wolf while it finished the last bits of its food, and he shifted closer. His range of petting slowly, carefully expanding. 

Jane took another small step and looked on in complete wonderment and emotionally awe. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen such a stunningly, achingly beautiful scene.

No, that wasn't quite true… she could remember another time where she had felt this way. It had been the first time she had ever seen John. 

The wolf had finished his food and had shifted his focus to John. John continued to rub the sculpted head and bury his lean fingers deep into the glorious pelt. Combing through the many colored facets of the fur.

And the wolf welcomed it openly. Which was what Jane couldn't get over. Wild animals just didn't do this if they weren't in some way or another sick. They didn't let humans near them so long as they had a choice in the matter. Some instinct buried deep inside of them let them know what it was behind the eyes of man. Where animals wouldn't necessarily openly object the presence of other animals or moving objects – no matter how big – they ran at the first sense of humans. Jane had always wondered about that. About what it was that those animals saw that made them run and not look back.

But then again she was, after all, a cop. She, above all others, had already seen many a time what **_they_** saw. She stared it in the face every time she was on a case, regardless of what it was, or who she was attempting to deal with.

But this wolf didn't tuck tail and run. He was playing… **_playing _**with John now. Licking his face and arms. Squatting playfully against the ground and letting out excited little whimpers. Obviously very pleased to be there.

It was as if the wolf had looked into John's eyes, and instead of finding something to spurn, he had instead found a kindred spirit. He didn't see a human kneeling there. He saw a potential pack member. A potential friendship… and a sense of home.

He saw John as another wolf… just in a different skin.

Looking at John and the way his face was lit up, Jane then realized that the wolf wasn't the only one feeling that. John was too. 

Then it swept over her. The knowledge she had known was going to eventually come on the heels of her revelation. And just like how she had never viewed wolves as particularly special up until this very moment, she had never really known the extent of who and what John was. Not really. 

But there it was, right in front of her nose. And just like with the wolf, she could never have been prepared for the simple revelation that was still so difficult to comprehend. 

She was struck with the similarities that she was seeing. And some little bit inside of her shifted slowly and fell into place. 

Maybe it was the same little bit that still held such reservations about John's violent side. Or maybe it was something else entirely. She wasn't sure, and she didn't try to dwell on it. But she was suddenly looking at John through what felt like different eyes. 

John and that wolf were****the same. In so many of the ways that counted. Same nature. Same sense of right and wrong. Same clear-cut views of the world around them… and the same sense of loyalty to others they considered themselves close to. Both would fight for their families. Both would provide for their mates and offspring. Both followed the same code. Both would do whatever it took to survive. 

But unlike others, they wouldn't become corrupt in the process. Because for them, there was no such thing as evil inside of their hearts. Even though they could recognize it, they had no concept of it. Not truly.

And just like that wolf, John knew what it felt like to be alone in a world that he was helpless to hold onto. To be different. Caught in a world that only sought to attack him at nearly every turn, and with the one who should have been protecting him responsible for it.

John was what everyone all sub-consciously wanted to be, but never could. Not anymore. The human race had allowed themselves to be shaped by one another. You didn't do all of that without losing parts of yourself permanently. Some humans could deal with the loss and move on. Never missing what they convinced themselves they couldn't believe in. While others knew all too well what had been taken away from them by their ancestors… and it either drove them dangerously mad or vindictively cruel. Sometimes both.

Watching them play, watching that same innocence that she loved so much in John's actions, and couldn't help but smile. It was such a rarity to see him this happy. There hadn't been much time for enjoyment in the last two months. 

Smiling at that, she took another step. Suddenly tempted to step off of that porch and join them. Yet she knew that she couldn't. She would never be able to interact with that wolf in the way that John could. Years of pre-conditioning of the 'human' psyche had seen to that. No matter how good a person she was inside, she was still very much a product of so-called civilization. She had lost somewhere along the line of growing up that… affinity, if it could be called that, and the wolf would see that and be afraid. As it had every right to be.

But John hadn't lost it. He had lived in a jungle with only its animals for a family. That was why he was so incredibly unique. He had never lost what the rest of the world had. He had come into her life with every piece of his soul intact... Which was more than anyone else in it could say. 

And that was why she fought for him. That was why she protected him… and why she was so drawn to him. She didn't want to see those pieces stripped from him.

Jane bare foot came down on the old board in front of her, and she felt it shift under her weight. Followed by a sudden squeak that lashed through the quiet morning air like that of the sound of a gunshot… and two very different faces that still regardless wore identical expressions turned sharply towards the sound. Two pairs of eyes locked onto hers, and she felt that visual connection like a punch throughout her entire form.. 

The wolf who had been so accepting of John wasn't so accepting of Jane's presence. Caution prodded by instinct turned the creature skittish. Not even for John would it stay in the presence of another human.

Dropping her eyes from the overwhelming impact of his, she felt embarrassed and more than slightly ashamed. Like maybe she had witnessed something she shouldn't have. Intruding upon some incredibly private moment that she had no claim upon. 

And she had. She had inadvertently severed the fragile connection between John and that wolf, and for a moment there, as she watched him look over his shoulder as the wild creature slipped back into the security of the forest, she had a sudden irrational fear that echoed what she had experienced at that landing strip, that he may go after it. That he may also disappear into that forest, re-enter a world that he could understand and live at peace with… and never come back. 

She saw the conflict in his eyes even with the distance separating them when he finally turned back to look at her. And even though he finally did disappear into the forest – albeit heading in a different direction than the wolf had – and despite the words that she had spoken the previous night, she knew on at least one level that he wouldn't leave her there alone. At least she hoped so. 

Because she still saw the same longing in those eyes that she saw every time they came to rest on her. The same desire. The same need. He looked to her like she was his last anchor in a world turned upside down, and she admitted cautiously to herself that that was probably closer to the truth than she wanted to admit.

She was the only one the he really trusted completely. Granted, Kathleen had made major progress in that arena, but Jane knew that he was still a little cautious. 

The only reason that John was still here was because of her. For some reason he had chosen her. And he still wanted her despite her frustrating insecurities, and that couldn't be easy on him. It sure as hell wasn't easy on her.

But Jane couldn't help but wonder if it would ever reach a point where their intimate connection with one another wouldn't be enough to hold him here. If one day, despite everything that had happened between them and the rest of their grudgingly combined worlds, he would actually leave her behind… 

For good. 

**_~%~%~%~%~%~%~%~%~%~%~%~%~_**

**_I taste desire at the touch of your skin…_**

**_I see my home inside your eyes,_**

**_And I long for peace inside the embrace of your heart…_**

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**_Like a distant lone wolf's cry,_**

**_ in the darkness of an unfamiliar night,_**

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**_A similar song echoes hauntingly deep_**

**_ from within my soul now forever changed…_**

**_Calling out helplessly for the melding of yours…_**

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**_And I'm praying with every breath that it will be soon,_**

**_so I can once again be able breathe…_**

**_So that I can once again know the ecstasy of freedom,_**

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**_And I can forever hold all of your light within the arms of my destiny,_**

**_And can finally turn away from the darkness to my past…_**

****

**_~%~%~%~%~%~%~%~%~%~%~%~%~_**

****


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